Shards of Hope

by Nalini Singh

  "An example?"

  "We're currently building new infrastructure for one of our media companies--they bought out the entire supply of a particular necessary component, putting us off schedule by two months." The leopard alpha scowled. "I'd understand if Liu needed the component, but they have no use for it. Just like they don't for the microbrewery they just bought out."

  "A microbrewery?" That didn't fit into any of the Liu Group's business interests. "Is it highly profitable?"

  "It was a small family operation and profitable at that level. Now it's just sitting there, nothing in production." Lucas's frown deepened. "Two changeling-owned clubs used that brewery almost exclusively to supply their patrons. You see what I'm talking about? It's like they're playing a game, probably because we won a couple of recent contracts for which Liu also put in a bid."

  "That doesn't sound like Jen Liu." The family matriarch was ruthless and would continue to be a thorn in the Ruling Coalition's side, but she didn't waste money or energy. "I'll speak to her. This may be a junior member of the family who's let power go to his or her head."

  "Appreciate it," Lucas said before signing off with a small nod.

  Contacting Jen Liu immediately, Aden raised the question. She called him back after forty-five minutes with a very strange report. "It appears we have been doing the things alleged by the DarkRiver alpha. However, we have no record of anyone ever giving the orders to action the incidents."

  "Could a junior have circumvented your decision-making process?"

  "Highly improbable, though I've asked my deputy to investigate." Her expression was faultlessly Silent, but Aden had the feeling the green-eyed, silver-haired telepath was annoyed. "I'd like to speak to Lucas Hunter and see if we can come to an accommodation. I currently have people tracking the supply chain to see where the parts may have gone--" She paused, her head angled, as if listening to another voice.

  "The parts have been located," she said a second later. "They were delivered to a family warehouse, and since the documentation was in order, the warehouse manager simply put them on the shelves." The matriarch's expression grew even more icy. "Someone is playing games, and those games may have an impact on our business activities."

  Aden knew the changeling sector was a lucrative one that had long been closed to Psy. With the fall of Silence and with other changes in the world, that door was now partially ajar. Aden wouldn't put it past another family group to scuttle the Liu Group's reputation with changelings in an effort to win contracts.

  "I'm sending you Lucas's contact details." That done, he said, "Have you had any other similar experiences?" It could be simply petty business politics, but Aden never assumed anything.

  "My family hasn't, but Kalani Chastain mentioned that a human business association recently filed legal papers that delayed a crucial project."

  "It sounds like an ordinary dispute."

  "Yes, until the other side didn't turn up to any of the hearings. The judge threw out the filing but the damage was done."

  The hairs on his nape prickling, Aden contacted Chastain as soon as he and Jen Liu finished speaking. The barely twenty-nine-year-old head of the family assumed the Ruling Coalition was taking her to task for the delay in what was a Coalition-funded comm station upgrade, and had no hesitation in giving him the full details.

  Since he didn't have a contact within the human association in question, he asked Zaira to get in touch with Bo. The Arrows and the Human Alliance had a cautiously "friendly" association that boiled down to "don't step on my toes and I won't step on yours."

  Making the contact, Zaira called back. "He's checking, will get back to you within the next hour."

  Every cell in Aden's body seemed to awaken at the sound of her voice. "Did Miane have any further success with Olivia?" he asked, conscious the BlackSea alpha was currently running everything from a base in Venice while she did what she could to help her packmate heal.

  "No, but Persephone was alive as of ten minutes ago." Zaira's voice turned edgy, hard. "A new e-mail came into Olivia's account, warning her against talking. Persephone was holding a printout of the most recent Beacon update, complete with a date and time stamp. And her captors didn't forget to obscure her face enough to make it useless for a teleport lock."

  Aden's own anger was a razored thing--he would never forget those recordings of Zaira in that cell of a room, and the idea of another child undergoing the same made him want to do cold, deadly violence. "That implies Olivia does know something."

  "The Halcyon may have done its job there; her memory is shot. Persephone's abductors will realize soon that Olivia didn't give us anything."

  Because if she had, Aden thought, the squad would've moved. "Stay on it," he said. "They won't risk harming the child until they're dead certain Olivia is contained." The breathing room was minuscule, but it might be enough to save a tiny and vulnerable life.

  "Amin tells me Blake is like a rat in a hole," Aden said, knowing she wanted to be kept up-to-date on that hunt. "The team doesn't have him yet, but they know he's trapped in New York." There had been no new murders that bore the rogue Arrow's signature, likely because of the unremitting pressure created by the squad's tracking teams.

  "Good." An icy response, followed by the unexpected. "I miss you. You've addicted me to you."

  He felt his lips curve again, the smile starting in his heart and spreading outward. Like the children, he, too, had discovered there was more to life than being an Arrow or even the leader of the squad. And he'd discovered it with his deadliest commander. "Success."

  No laughter, but her final words were a caress. "See you in bed."

  "Every night." At present, that was the only time they were together--Blake, Persephone, the constant rumors in the Net, the integration of adult Arrows into family units with Arrow children, it all required care and attention.

  But the rest periods, those were theirs. Even if it was a bare five hours, Aden made sure the squad knew he was offline except for major emergencies. Fully accepting his mantle as second in command, Vasic had stepped in to take the calls that would normally be routed to Aden.

  It was the favorite part of his entire day.

  Bo Knight contacted him fifteen minutes after that thought passed through his head. "The association in question categorically denies ever filing those papers."

  "Interesting."

  "Isn't it?"

  "An individual or a group attempting to pit Psy against human?"

  "I'd say that, except I had a very similar conversation with one of SnowDancer's lieutenants not long ago." Bo's tone was terse. "We were apparently buying land out from under changeling packs--except we weren't."

  Aden's prickling instincts went on full alert. "Do you know of any other incidents?"

  "No. But I'm going to look into it."

  "As will I." Subtle and insidious, someone was playing what appeared to be a very patient game of chess.

  Chapter 59

  IT HAD TAKEN Ming's data analysts fourteen hours to complete the deep background on the Kurevni situation. They'd run into a number of dead ends, as could be expected from a man who was attempting to subvert Ming through a spy inside Ming's own camp.

  "Then," the senior analyst said, "we discovered this." He laid a piece of paper in front of Ming.

  It was a list; specifically, step-by-step instructions on how to set up a post office box no one would ever trace back to Kurevni. "When did he receive this?"

  "Seven months ago. It came from an anonymous account," the analyst added, anticipating Ming's next question.

  "You have the location and number of the P.O. box?"

  "Yes, it wasn't difficult once we knew the time frame and the steps Kurevni would've taken to open it. I sent one of our people to covertly empty the box." He held out a sealed envelope. "This was the only thing inside."

  Ming saw it bore the postmark of a major metropolitan city, but the postage had been paid in cash, the inked stamp generic. "Untraceable?"
/>   "Yes, sir. The postage could've been purchased at any corner store."

  Slitting open the envelope, Ming used the tips of his fingers to retrieve the piece of paper within. It held complete and confidential details of Ming's plans for an undeveloped piece of land. Below that were a number of suggestions as to how Kurevni could leverage the information to build his profile.

  "We processed the envelope. No DNA or prints." The analyst took the letter and envelope from Ming. "I'll get the letter tested, too, as well as the sealed parts of the envelope."

  "Do it quickly," Ming said, though he didn't expect any useful results; the puppet master behind this was very clever, clever enough that he--or she--had almost manipulated Ming straight into a trap that, according to Faith NightStar, would've equaled his downfall.

  Dismissing the analyst, he ordered his personal black ops team to retrieve Kurevni and bring him to Ming's subterranean office. Soon the man was before him, sweating copiously despite the cool temperature in the office, runnels of perspiration flowing down his temples and his pale blue office shirt bearing large wet patches under the arms.

  The smell of fear was pungent.

  When Ming took a seat in the chair across from him, nothing but a few inches of uncarpeted plascrete floor between them, the other man found his voice. "You can't do this. I'm a well-known figure."

  "I don't intend to kill you, Mr. Kurevni." Ming found him pathetic; this, he thought, was what the Psy would become without Silence. Weak and easily crushed. "Neither will I torture you," he added, "since it's clear you know nothing." Kurevni was simply a puppet.

  "However"--he leaned in so close that Kurevni had nowhere to go--"I strongly suggest you stop taking advice from anonymous sources who would like me to do exactly that, not simply to yourself, but to your family."

  "Wh-what?"

  "You are being led like a goat to the slaughter." One perfectly placed to take center stage in the destruction of Ming LeBon. "Much of the data you've been fed is confidential." Not high level, but high enough that Ming did unquestionably have a mole in the ranks. "I planned to torture your entire family, including your newest grandchild, in order to make you give up the name of your source." He calmly and carefully detailed the methods his operatives would've used. "As you can see, my people excel at prolonging pain."

  "I don't know!" Kurevni said, his face having gone from fever-flushed red to a sick, pasty shade of white. "I swear it. It was all through a post office box."

  Ming leaned back. "Convince me."

  Voice ragged and eyes wet, Kurevni began to talk, but he had pitifully little to tell. "I swear," he said again when Ming didn't respond. "I just thought you had a discontented staff member."

  "Perhaps," Ming said in a deliberately toneless way, "it's time to rethink your friendships with unknown sources." He glanced at a guard. "Take him home."

  Kurevni's mouth fell open. "Aren't you afraid I'll talk about this?"

  Ming looked into Kurevni's fear-chilled eyes. "You're free to talk, but make funeral arrangements for your entire family beforehand and ask their forgiveness for the agony in which they'll spend their final hours. The infant won't understand, but I know emotional beings are sentimental about such things."

  Kurevni threw up over the side of his chair. Trembling when he raised his head, he said, "I'll drop out of politics on my return home."

  "On the contrary, I strongly insist you stay. Competition is good." The appearance of it made the populace feel as if they had a voice, a choice, and that, in turn, kept them docile. "Of course, should I find you in possession of confidential information from my camp again, the Kurevni line will cease to exist."

  Broken now, Kurevni looked to Ming for instruction. "Do you want me to shut down the post office box?"

  "No, leave it open." The anonymous source might yet make a mistake. "Clear it as per usual, but open nothing. Call the number you'll be given and one of my men will retrieve it."

  "I'll do whatever you say. Just please don't hurt my family."

  Ming watched the other man leave. That situation was resolved, but it left him with another issue. He now owed Anthony Kyriakus. Ming didn't like owing anyone anything. At present, there was nothing he could do about this particular debt, but what he could do was use the details of this incident to open a line of communication with the Arrows. It was the squad's task to keep watch on events that could deleteriously affect the Psy, and riots in Ming's territory would've caused countless casualties as well as triggering serious financial repercussions.

  If he did it carefully enough, he could start to rebuild the bridges he'd burned. Having the Arrows back as his personal death squad would make him powerful enough to take on even Kaleb Krychek. And owning Vasic as his pet teleporter would make eliminating Sienna Lauren a far easier project.

  Aden would have to die, of course. Ming didn't understand how a midlevel Tp and field medic had ended up with the leadership of the squad, but as long as Aden lived, Ming's leadership would be under threat.

  To defer suspicion, he'd wait a suitable period after he retook control, and he'd be careful to make it look like an accident.

  Decision made, he returned to his office and initiated the comm link. "Aden," he said when the Arrow leader answered. "I have certain information you might find useful."

  Chapter 60

  ADEN WAS TRYING to put the puzzle pieces together when Zaira walked unexpectedly into his Central Command office the next morning. Running his hand down her back simply because he wanted to make contact, he said, "Venice?"

  "Nothing to report." To his surprise, she rose on her toes to brush her lips over his jaw before turning her attention to the comm panel he was using as a work screen. "Why are you staring at random pieces of data?"

  He went through each of the data points for her. "It appears to be an orchestrated campaign to sow seeds of mistrust between various groups." It couldn't be simple chance; the incidents all bore a similar cunning signature.

  "Clever," Zaira said. "Why waste money and resources on a military attack when you can break alliances or poison the air before the alliances ever form? Push it a bit more and irritation turns to aggravation, then to serious conflict. And while your opponents fight among themselves, wasting their own resources and manpower, the puppet master becomes the most powerful by default."

  That was why Zaira was one of his commanders. Not just because of her lethal abilities, but because her mind saw patterns where even he had trouble. The motive she'd ascribed to this series of events was not only plausible, it explained why the targets spanned all three races.

  "Is that admiration I hear?"

  Zaira nodded. "Doesn't mean I agree with it--but the concept is smart, especially how they're capitalizing on old fault lines and fragile new business overtures." She tapped the data point Bo had provided about his people's recent land conflict with the changelings. "Humans and changelings have always been a loose coupling, mostly because Silence separated out the Psy. Create a fracture there, too, and you end up with three isolated races."

  "At which point," Aden said, "you start creating infighting in each group." He frowned, split the screen to bring up a Beacon article from a few days before. It was small and he'd noticed it only because of the names mentioned, but now . . .

  It appears the former Councilors are no longer keeping to their rumored "gentleman's agreement" to stay out of each other's businesses. The Duncan Corporation has just underbid Scott Enterprises on an airjet contract. At a bare fifty million, the contract is minor relative to the turnover of both companies, but it is notable given the identities of the parties involved.

  Zaira watched in silence as he contacted Nikita Duncan. Her response to his request for business data was frosty, but when he indicated this might be a larger issue that could impact all her business enterprises, as well as the markets themselves, she confirmed his suspicions.

  Hanging up, he told Zaira what he'd learned. "Nikita and Shoshanna were never allies, but they don'
t undercut one another since that would drive down prices overall. Nikita did put in a bid for the contract, but it was a deliberately high one."

  Nikita hadn't spelled it out, but Aden knew the reason for the Duncan bid was to make the other party feel as if they had a viable second choice. Not ethical, but Nikita wasn't exactly white as snow. "She says the error was introduced at Shoshanna's end. Someone in Shoshanna's camp forwarded an impossibly high bid rather than the correct one."

  "So we've got people embedded within the trusted circles of major players." Zaira's eyes gleamed. "Someone really smart and really patient put this entire operation together. Their only mistake is the timing." She leaned into him. "A year ago, the connections between various groups were far more amorphous. Lucas Hunter and Jen Liu, for example, might never have made contact."

  Wrapping his arm around her waist, he turned her body to face his. "Regardless, this has to be working on some level, particularly with smaller groups who would never connect their problems to a larger conspiracy."

  Zaira thrust her hands into his hair without warning, gripped at it, and pulled him down till his lips were a bare inch from hers. "It's had a taste of you," she whispered. "The rage inside me. Now it wants to gorge."

  *

  EVERY time he was near, his scent would get into her lungs . . . No, that wasn't true. He didn't have to be near. She'd come here, to his office in this underground place she preferred to avoid, because she hadn't seen him for six hours and had started to hurt inside her chest from missing him.

  "Take me," he said, his dark eyes filled with so many things she didn't understand.

  "You're already mine." It came out instinctively, from that primal, possessive core at the heart of her nature.

  He pressed his forehead to hers, not fighting her hold. "I know, but do you?" His hair fell over his forehead to brush hers. "Deep inside, do you know?"

  She didn't understand his question, and the frustration made her pull at his hair. "Stop talking in circles."

  "A psychic bond," he said, his mind touching hers.